How long will L.A. shield its single-family-home neighborhoods from rezoning?

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You can’t have an honest conversation about California’s housing crisis without talking about zoning — through which cities designate how their land is used and what can be built where.
And when it comes to residential zoning, low-density housing dominates the market in the Golden State.
Researchers from UC Berkeley’s Othering & Belonging Institute crunched the numbers and found nearly 96% of all the land zoned for residential use in California is reserved for single-family homes.
With those zoning choices, researchers argue, many cities are “effectively barring denser housing options … and creating an obstacle to racial and economic equality in the state.”
In the effort to dramatically increase housing stocks and decrease housing costs, state regulators are requiring cities to plan for more affordable housing construction, which often requires rezoning.
In dense, sprawling Los Angeles, officials face a state mandate to plan for 250,000 more housing units.
After years of study, the city planning commissioners had to make a big decision this week: Where should all those new homes go?
As Times housing reporter Liam Dillon wrote ahead of the vote in his new subscriber exclusive, L.A. planning officials proposed to meet the state requirement by making high-density neighborhoods even denser while leaving low-density, single-family-home communities virtually off-limits.
Single-family homes make up nearly 75% of all residential land in the city.
“At stake is no less than a vision for Los Angeles’ future,” Liam wrote. “Will L.A. continue to preserve communities dominated by single-family homes? Or will the city make a historic shift to allow for more affordable housing in areas that have long excluded it?”
After hours of public comment and debate, commissioners opted for the status quo. But L.A.’s housing future is not settled yet.
The seven-member panel approved planning staff’s recommendation to exclude single-family-home areas from having to build more housing. But they also expressed that the City Council should consider other options laid out in the planning department’s proposed housing plan, which includes rezoning some single-family-home neighborhoods in Mid-City, the Westside and the San Fernando Valley to allow for multifamily housing projects.
City Council members will have to approve some version of the plan before the state’s deadline in February.
L.A.’s zoning war rages on
Nearly two-thirds of Angelenos rent their homes, according to U.S. census data.
It probably won’t come as a surprise that residents who enjoy their lower-density way of life typically don’t want to see that change.
Many homeowners groups oppose increasing housing in their single-family-home communities, arguing the city can achieve its goals by boosting housing along commercial corridors and in places already zoned for apartments.
Affordable housing advocates contend keeping the status quo will only serve to worsen the quality of life, health and economic mobility of the city’s renting majority.
“The argument is that the majority of the residents need to accept a greater disruption to their lives so the minority of residents, who are disproportionately wealthier and whiter, can continue to keep their neighborhood as it is,” Mahdi Manji, director of public policy at the Inner City Law Center, told Liam.
State leaders’ efforts to boost housing are being met with fierce opposition by some cities, including Huntington Beach, Beverly Hills and Coronado.
As the zoning debate raged locally, city officials tried to bury a publicly funded long-awaited study highlighting the harmful legacy of racist housing policies in L.A. and beyond. The report explores restrictive housing covenants, redlining and other city-sanctioned segregation, the effects of which still persist today.
Researchers found that the city’s approach to planning housing “too often prioritized the concerns of the White middle class over the marginalized, denying communities of color access to resources and excluding them from wealth-building opportunities,” the report states.
The 124-page report from the firm Architectural Resources Group and academics affiliated with UCLA and USC was initially commissioned in 2021 and released only last week after The Times argued the city was breaking the law by withholding it.
“The report noted that more than 80% of L.A.’s land area with the highest-performing schools, most public amenities and best access to jobs is zoned only for single-family homes,” Liam explained this week. “In a smaller slice that captures the wealthiest neighborhoods that are majority white, 95% of residentially zoned land is exclusively for single-family homes.”
The analysis from UC Berkeley also notes the exclusionary effects of zoning decisions.
“Jurisdictions with more restrictive zoning have fewer non-white residents,” researchers wrote. “Although California is only 35 percent white, cities above 96 percent single-family-only zoning are nearly 55 percent white.”
Curious what residential zoning looks like in your community? You can explore L.A.’s zoning map here. And for other Californians, UC Berkeley’s report includes maps for the dozens of cities in Greater L.A. and hundreds more across the state, with single-family-zoned areas noted in pink (there’s a lot of it).
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Have a great day, from the Essential California team
Ryan Fonseca, reporterDefne Karabatur, fellowAndrew Campa, Sunday reporterHunter Clauss, multiplatform editorChristian Orozco, assistant editorStephanie Chavez, deputy metro editorKarim Doumar, head of newsletters
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